1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method thereof and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of speed-up and high-picture quality of an electro-photographic printing apparatus and an ink-jet printing device, a business category of print-on-demand (POD) has been appearing as a rival of the above described print industry. By dividing a job to be processed by the printing apparatus into relatively small lot jobs, the POD is directed to perform print processing within a short due date without using a large apparatus or a system.
In the POD, for example, an image forming apparatus such as a digital copying machine and a digital malfunction peripheral is used as much as possible in order to realize a digital printing by using an electronic data. In a printing job using the image forming apparatus, a post-processing step for executing stapling, punching, saddle stitch binding, case binding, uses an apparatus, such as a paper folding machine and a paper cutting machine, which is referred to as a finisher. These apparatuses can be divided into three types.
The first one is a finisher, which is connected to a paper feeding path of the image forming apparatus, and paper output from the image forming apparatus is conveyed through the paper feeding path. Such finisher is referred to as “in-line finisher”. The second one is a finisher which is connected to a network but is not coupled with the image forming apparatus through the paper feeding path, so that no automatic conveyance is performed, i.e., a manual operation of an operator is required, for the printed paper. Such finisher is referred to as “near-line finisher”.
The third one is a finisher which is not connected to a network nor has an information transmission unit. Such finisher is referred to as “off-line finisher”. Some of the in-line finisher and the near-line finisher attached to the image forming apparatus (hereinafter referred to as the “printer”) have an “inserter” function for inserting a sheet while printing or post-processing.
By using this “inserter” function, it becomes possible that only color pages such as a cover or an interleaf are preliminary printed by a full color printer, and subsequently the other pages are printed, when printing whole pages by a monochrome printer, while the printed color pages are inserted through the “inserter” attached to the printer. Accordingly, merging of the color pages and monochrome pages with a manual operation is no more required, and thus an effect that the cost can be suppressed more than the cost when the whole pages are printed at once by a color printer.
Japanese Patent No. 03848172 discloses such a technique that a pre-view image of paper inserted from the inserter can be displayed so as to be recognizable from a pre-view image of paper fed from a paper feed unit that is different from the inserter.
In Japanese Patent No. 03848172, the inserter could be designated as an attribute of the paper feed unit of the insertion paper such as the “cover” to be inserted into a top position of the document, and the “interleaf” and the “index paper” to be inserted into a top position of the chapter. However, for example, insertion of paper into a certain page included in the document from the inserter could not be designated. Further, such a printing method can also be employed that previously printing the “cover”, the “interleaf”, the “index paper”, and the like of the pages included in the document are performed to generate the pre-print sheets, and the pre-print sheets are fed from the inserter, as required, when the body of the book is printed. However, use of the above described printing method invites the following inconvenience. That is, the document pages used in printing the “cover”, the “interleaf”, and the “index paper” included in the document are to be deleted from the document when the body of the book is printed and therefore, the document page cannot be stored within a single document. Further, in the conventional technique, a print content is not printed in the pre-view image of the paper fed from the inserter. Therefore, for example, in a case where a pre-print sheet is inserted, a user could not confirm the print content of the pre-print sheet in the preview image.